Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
I _was_ scared, now, I tell you. But there warn’t no getting away, you
know. They gripped us all, and marched us right along, straight for the
graveyard, which was a mile and a half down the river, and the whole
town at our heels, for we made noise enough, and it was only nine in
the evening.
As we went by our house I wished I hadn’t sent Mary Jane out of town;
because now if I could tip her the wink she’d light out and save me,
and blow on our dead-beats.
Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just carrying on like
wildcats; and to make it more scary the sky was darking up, and the
lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to shiver amongst
the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and most dangersome I ever
was in; and I was kinder stunned; everything was going so different
from what I had allowed for; stead of being fixed so I could take my
own time if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my
back to save me and set me free when the close-fit come, here was
nothing in the world betwixt me and sudden death but just them
tattoo-marks. If they didn’t find them—
I couldn’t bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn’t think
about nothing else. It got darker and darker, and it was a beautiful
time to give the crowd the slip; but that big husky had me by the
wrist—Hines—and a body might as well try to give Goliar the slip. He
dragged me right along, he was so excited, and I had to run to keep up.
When they got there they swarmed into the graveyard and washed over it
like an overflow. And when they got to the grave they found they had
about a hundred times as many shovels as they wanted, but nobody hadn’t
thought to fetch a lantern. But they sailed into digging anyway by the
flicker of the lightning, and sent a man to the nearest house, a half a
mile off, to borrow one.
So they dug and dug like everything; and it got awful dark, and the
rain started, and the wind swished and swushed along, and the lightning
come brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed; but them people never
took no notice of it, they was so full of this business; and one minute
you could see everything and every face in that big crowd, and the
shovelfuls of dirt sailing up out of the grave, and the next second the
dark wiped it all out, and you couldn’t see nothing at all.
At last they got out the coffin and begun to unscrew the lid, and then
such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as there was, to
scrouge in and get a sight, you never see; and in the dark, that way,
it was awful. Hines he hurt my wrist dreadful pulling and tugging so,
and I reckon he clean forgot I was in the world, he was so excited and
panting.
All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white glare,
and somebody sings out:
“By the living jingo, here’s the bag of gold on his breast!”
Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and dropped my wrist and
give a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and the way I lit
out and shinned for the road in the dark there ain’t nobody can tell.
I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flew—leastways, I had it all
to myself except the solid dark, and the now-and-then glares, and the
buzzing of the rain, and the thrashing of the wind, and the splitting
of the thunder; and sure as you are born I did clip it along!
When I struck the town I see there warn’t nobody out in the storm, so I
never hunted for no back streets, but humped it straight through the
main one; and when I begun to get towards our house I aimed my eye and
set it. No light there; the house all dark—which made me feel sorry and
disappointed, I didn’t know why. But at last, just as I was sailing by,
_flash_ comes the light in Mary Jane’s window! and my heart swelled up
sudden, like to bust; and the same second the house and all was behind
me in the dark, and wasn’t ever going to be before me no more in this
world. She _was_ the best girl I ever see, and had the most sand.
The minute I was far enough above the town to see I could make the
tow-head, I begun to look sharp for a boat to borrow, and the first time
the lightning showed me one that wasn’t chained I snatched it and
shoved. It was a canoe, and warn’t fastened with nothing but a rope.
The tow-head was a rattling big distance off, away out there in the
middle of the river, but I didn’t lose no time; and when I struck the
raft at last I was so fagged I would a just laid down to blow and gasp
if I could afforded it. But I didn’t. As I sprung aboard I sung out:
“Out with you, Jim, and set her loose! Glory be to goodness, we’re shut
of them!”
Jim lit out, and was a-coming for me with both arms spread, he was so
full of joy; but when I glimpsed him in the lightning my heart shot up
in my mouth and I went overboard backwards; for I forgot he was old
King Lear and a drownded A-rab all in one, and it most scared the
livers and lights out of me. But Jim fished me out, and was going to
hug me and bless me, and so on, he was so glad I was back and we was
shut of the king and the duke, but I says:
“Not now; have it for breakfast, have it for breakfast! Cut loose and
let her slide!”
So in two seconds away we went a-sliding down the river, and it _did_
seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river,
and nobody to bother us. I had to skip around a bit, and jump up and
crack my heels a few times—I couldn’t help it; but about the third
crack I noticed a sound that I knowed mighty well, and held my breath
and listened and waited; and sure enough, when the next flash busted
out over the water, here they come!—and just a-laying to their oars and
making their skiff hum! It was the king and the duke.
So I wilted right down on to the planks then, and give up; and it was
all I could do to keep from crying.
CHAPTER XXX.
When they got aboard the king went for me, and shook me by the collar,
and says:
“Tryin’ to give us the slip, was ye, you pup! Tired of our company,
hey?”
I says:
“No, your majesty, we warn’t—_please_ don’t, your majesty!”
“Quick, then, and tell us what _was_ your idea, or I’ll shake the
insides out o’ you!”
“Honest, I’ll tell you everything just as it happened, your majesty.
The man that had a-holt of me was very good to me, and kept saying he
had a boy about as big as me that died last year, and he was sorry to
see a boy in such a dangerous fix; and when they was all took by
surprise by finding the gold, and made a rush for the coffin, he lets
go of me and whispers, ‘Heel it now, or they’ll hang ye, sure!’ and I
lit out. It didn’t seem no good for _me_ to stay—_I_ couldn’t do
nothing, and I didn’t want to be hung if I could get away. So I never
stopped running till I found the canoe; and when I got here I told Jim
to hurry, or they’d catch me and hang me yet, and said I was afeard you
and the duke wasn’t alive now, and I was awful sorry, and so was Jim,
and was awful glad when we see you coming; you may ask Jim if I
didn’t.”
Jim said it was so; and the king told him to shut up, and said, “Oh,
yes, it’s _mighty_ likely!” and shook me up again, and said he reckoned
he’d drownd me. But the duke says:
“Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would _you_ a done any different? Did
you inquire around for _him_ when you got loose? _I_ don’t remember
it.”
So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town and everybody in
it. But the duke says:
“You better a blame sight give _yourself_ a good cussing, for you’re
the one that’s entitled to it most. You hain’t done a thing from the
start that had any sense in it, except coming out so cool and cheeky
with that imaginary blue-arrow mark. That _was_ bright—it was right
down bully; and it was the thing that saved us. For if it hadn’t been
for that, they’d a jailed us till them Englishmen’s baggage come—and
then—the penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took ’em to the
graveyard, and the gold done us a still bigger kindness; for if the
excited fools hadn’t let go all holts and made that rush to get a look,
we’d a slept in our cravats to-night—cravats warranted to _wear_,
too—longer than _we’d_ need ’em.”
They was still a minute—thinking; then the king says, kind of
absent-minded like:
“Mf! And we reckoned the _niggers_ stole it!”
That made me squirm!
“Yes,” says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic, “_We_
did.”
After about a half a minute the king drawls out:
“Leastways, _I_ did.”
The duke says, the same way:
“On the contrary, _I_ did.”
The king kind of ruffles up, and says:
“Looky here, Bilgewater, what’r you referrin’ to?”
The duke says, pretty brisk:
“When it comes to that, maybe you’ll let me ask, what was _you_
referring to?”
“Shucks!” says the king, very sarcastic; “but _I_ don’t know—maybe you
was asleep, and didn’t know what you was about.”
The duke bristles up now, and says:
“Oh, let _up_ on this cussed nonsense; do you take me for a blame’
fool? Don’t you reckon _I_ know who hid that money in that coffin?”
“_Yes_, sir! I know you _do_ know, because you done it yourself!”
“It’s a lie!”—and the duke went for him. The king sings out:
“Take y’r hands off!—leggo my throat!—I take it all back!”
The duke says:
“Well, you just own up, first, that you _did_ hide that money there,
intending to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and dig
it up, and have it all to yourself.”
“Wait jest a minute, duke—answer me this one question, honest and fair;
if you didn’t put the money there, say it, and I’ll b’lieve you, and
take back everything I said.”
“You old scoundrel, I didn’t, and you know I didn’t. There, now!”
“Well, then, I b’lieve you. But answer me only jest this one more—now
_don’t_ git mad; didn’t you have it in your mind to hook the money and
hide it?”
The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he says:
“Well, I don’t care if I _did_, I didn’t _do_ it, anyway. But you not
only had it in mind to do it, but you _done_ it.”
“I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that’s honest. I won’t say
I warn’t _goin_’ to do it, because I _was;_ but you—I mean somebody—got
in ahead o’ me.”
“It’s a lie! You done it, and you got to _say_ you done it, or—”
The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:
“’Nough!—_I own up!_”
I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much more easier
than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his hands off and
says:
“If you ever deny it again I’ll drown you. It’s _well_ for you to set
there and blubber like a baby—it’s fitten for you, after the way you’ve
acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble
everything—and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own
father. You ought to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it
saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you never say a word for ’em.
It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to _believe_
that rubbage. Cuss you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make up
the deffisit—you wanted to get what money I’d got out of the Nonesuch
and one thing or another, and scoop it _all!_”
The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:
“Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it warn’t me.”
“Dry up! I don’t want to hear no more _out_ of you!” says the duke.
“And _now_ you see what you _got_ by it. They’ve got all their own
money back, and all of _ourn_ but a shekel or two _besides_. G’long to
bed, and don’t you deffersit _me_ no more deffersits, long ’s _you_
live!”
So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort,
and before long the duke tackled _his_ bottle; and so in about a half
an hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got,
the lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each other’s arms.